this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
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Maybe so. Maybe capitalism can never remain checked because the temptation to acquire more wealth will always end up winning. You'd like to think that people are better than that, buuuuut...
Which system IS stable? AFAICT every system ever has allowed some people more power than others and those people cleave more power to themselves over time. This appears to be how most empires fall
Good question! The oldest government still in operation appears to be San Marino, a tiny country near Italy, at around 415 years. Considering that even at a small size it's only been around that long despite civilization being around 6000 years old, I think it's safe to say we haven't managed a system that has real staying power yet.
There's hunter-gatherer tribes that have been more or less stable for over a thousand years. It's said that the Nez Perce have lived on the Columbia River for 11,500 years.
Yeah, but for the purpose of looking at stable governments in cities, hunter-gather societies aren't a helpful comparison.
Good points but my question is more about governments that work at the scale of a nation state.
I think it's possible that nation states are inherently unstable. An improvement on monarchy, but still vulnerable to oligarchy.
I'm not sure what the future holds, or what comes next, but I suspect that federation will play an important role.
Yep, and it's also inherently unsustainable and will collapse.
There are a lot of capitalist countries that haven't collapsed yet. We'll need longer than our lifetimes to see proof that it can never work.
But I suspect that people in power just aren't good enough to keep it from going bad eventually.
It's more that it's unsustainable. Collapse can be delayed, but not outright prevented as long as the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall exists.
It's already "bad," just constantly decaying.
I mean we do have a pretty good indication of a quite large impending factor which may cause a lot of them to collapse in the coming years, and which could collectively be attributed to them pretty well, especially within the last 50 years.
That is an interesting argument, but where is the proof? Economics is a very murky "science" as it is, a broad statement such as "capitalism is inherently unstable" needs some healthy data backing it up.
The same argument could be made about communism, as an economic system it doesn't have the best track record.
Socialism seems to have a pretty good track record. But even in socialism there are issues, especially around ensuring a steady supply of kids coming through, once population starts falling the cracks start appearing.
Marx makes his case for it in Capital, specifically Volume 3, Chapter 13-15, though it's easier to digest Wage Labor and Capital and Value, Price and Profit. Essentially, competition forces prices lower, and automation and increased production lower the price floor. Automation is pursued because it temporarily allows you to outcompete, until other firms can produce at the same price, forcing prices to match at a new floor. This continues. It's more like gravity than an invisible hand, there do exist ways to push back against it, but the overall trend is negative, as the Rate of Profit falls to 0.
It can't, because Communism abolishes this system. Communism has a good track record when properly put into historical context and is definitely the correct goal to pursue.
Socialism is just the precursor to Communism. The USSR, Cuba, PRC, Vietnam, Laos, etc. are/were all Socialist, building towards Communism, I don't see why you say Communism has a bad track record but Socialism has a good track record, that seems contradictory. Further still, I don't see what birth rates have to do with anything.
I'd say that Marxism at least is fatally flawed. The idea that you start a Communist society by gathering all power to a central council is the issue. Once power is obtained it's never willingly dispersed. This has been the fate of existing all communist governments
This is a fundamental and critical misunderstanding of what Communism is, and what Marx refers to as a State. Marx makes himself clear in Critique of the Gotha Programme, but the State for Marx isn't just "government." Marx was vehemontly anti-Anarchist, not out of principle disagreements, but on a practical and rational basis.
For Marx, the State is the element of government by which class society sustains and protects itself. Ie, private property rights, and the police that protect it. Communism would have a government, its own police, and its own structures and administration through central planning. The State whithering away, as Marx puts it, is the slow lack of retaining the former elements of class society. For example, we no longer have Streetlamp Lighters, as streetlamps are electric now. This wasn't because they were targeted and eliminated, but simply fell out of favor with the progression of society.
This right here is the crux of your misunderstanding. Carrying over from the whithering away elaboration from my last paragraph, the government is not supposed to intentionally collapse itself, it's supposed to remain a democratic worker government, and continue to be built up over time.
Different AES states have seen their own issues, but none of them have been due to "not willingly giving up power," which is a fundamental misconception of how these AES States function, or what the Marxist path to Communism truly is.
I don't get how this just whithers away
It doesn't.
What does whither away are things like Private Property Rights and other elements by which Capitalist society maintains itself.
The "whithering away of the State" is one of the most commonly taken out of context aspects of Marxism, most people associate the State with all aspects of Government. Marx does not make that same association, and used the word State as shorthand for the aforementioned Capitalist elements of government.
This is why there's a big difference between Anarchism and Marxism. Anarchists seek horizontal organization, and Marxists are fine with central planning and endorse it.
Are there contemporary sources of how to implement this in practice?
What do you mean by contemporary? The theory hasn't really stagnated, Marxism has grown over time. There are AES states that have Marxism as the core model, but each are in different positions on the global sphere.
I've read Marx and I'm happy with my interpretation
Believing Marxism to be "fatally flawed" because you completely misunderstood his works to the foundational level is silly though, right? Marxism isn't literary fiction or anything, where you can apply Death of the Author and write about your own personal meaning from the text, Marx was very clear both in writing and in speeches, and Marxists have studied and built on his original body of work.
You don't have to take it from me alone, Marxism is extremely thoroughly documented and understood, flexible, adaptable, and widely discussed.
Whatevs
What was the point of your original comment? Just to take a dig at what other people were discussing and then dip when I tried to have a productive discussion with you?
I believe they are what is known as a "low effort troll"
I doubt they are a troll, they had a common misconception and then got upset when it was pointed out. There was nothing deliberately provacative.
Just odd all around.
I just mean that I don't think they were a good faith interlocutor. Probably if I were to put a specific explanation on it, I'd say that they are probably tired of having the same argument over and over again and being corrected repetitively, to the point where they're not genuinely engaging anymore, I've seen that a lot. Especially with how quickly they backed out but also still left a comment. I dunno if that level of bad faith would be considered trolling in the strictest sense, but I would probably still classify it as such.
Sometimes you make a comment about something that seems interesting and then realise you've wandered into a enclypoedia convention and have bitten off more than you have the head space to deal with. I probably should have said that instead of what I did say. My apologies
I did try to be thorough, but I guess I overexplained and ended up alienating you, my bad. I do hope you got something from it, I try to clear up misconceptions about Marxism when I see them because he is very misunderstood, especially on instances like Lemmy.world.
Have a good day!
Don't apologise. Totally my fault - I was being a dick. I've been on the other side of this kind of interaction with someone doubling down after being called out on being a jerk. I should do better. Thanks for your response
You should never be “happy” with your interpretation. You should always be willing to learn, refine and adjust your interpretation to changing conditions.
Thank for your instruction, Internet rando
Next instruction: eat a porkchop. You're looking a bit peckish.
Your welcome
While I appreciate that Marx made a case, this is not data or evidence. It seems intuitively true, but that doesn't really move you closer to real proof.
I'm not sure if you are trying to imply automation is a good or bad thing. Looking through history, the industrial revolution was bad for the workers of the time, but in the long run massively improved the living standards of everyone. Automation is a net good in my opinion. Competition is simply an accelerator, this is not really tied to the economic system being used. In capitalist or communist systems, firms that are protected from competition (by what ever means) do not innovate as fast or as effectively (see Intel as a great example of this).
While this can be true, it is not necessarily true.
As your population ages, the costs to care for them raise at an increasing rate. If you don't have enough new workers to stabilize the economic base, the burden that an aging population places on the younger generation grows until it becomes untenable.
What would count as real proof, if not prices falling due to competition?
I'm not arguing whether automation is "good or bad," I am strictly speaking about the inherent unsustainability of Capitalism. Automation is good, but in Capitalism is used to purely benefit Capitalists, as wages stagnate with respect to ever-climbing productivity.
Why would it not be true? This still doesn't explain why you stated Communism to have a poor track record, no AES state has yet made it to Communism, as Communism must be achieved globally.
Again, this has nothing to do with Socialism or Communism. It seems to be referring to welfare for elderly people, which exists in all systems.
That is the problem I was referring to in my original post, "economics is a very murky science", I come from an engineering and physical sciences point of view. Good economic data is hard to come by, it is always contaminated with chaotic factors that cannot be controlled for. "Proof" may not be possible in economic science.
Because from a logical point of view, there is no necessity to go from socialism to communism. A country could easily decide that socialism is where they wan to stay. When something is necessarily true, not only does it always happen it must happen. That is the point I was trying to make, there is nothing fundamental about socialism forcing that transition from socialism to communism.
I have to disagree with you there, in a capitalist system the burden of care falls on the individual (see the American health care system), whereas in socialism and communism, that burden falls on the state. This is a key economic factor, I'm from NZ and the social healthcare system is really awesome, but as with everything we can see how it could be better.
The system has a capacity, if you want to increase that capacity you have to have the resources to do that. If your population is not growing (stable is not enough) then your health care system is always in danger of not having enough resource. The problem is that the system always need to grow, as we get better at improving the lives of people and increasing lifespan the burden from the elderly increases. The resources used to care for the elderly are finite and use up system capacity.
Even in a capitalist society the system has capacity limits, there is no amount of money that you can throw at it to increase your number of doctors tomorrow. You have X doctors today, this is not easily increased beyond the natural rate (X+new doctors-retiring doctors), all you can do is move the existing ones around.
You can use this argument for a lot of major points of expenditure; education, welfare, transport etc....but healthcare is starkly different between the different economic models.
I also come from said POV, as do many on Lemmy. Simply casting doubt in spite of overwhelming evidence of goods getting cheaper and cheaper is not sufficient.
No, they cannot. Communism is advanced, developed Socialism. In the long, long run, either they move on from Socialism to Communism, or they fall back to Capitalism.
Communism is achieved when the entire globe becomes Socialist, money has been phased out (which becomes a necessity to avoid falling back into Capitalism), all Capitalism has been eradicated, and the previous elements of Capitalist society have fallen by the wayside.
Systems do not stay static, everything is in motion, even if it takes a long time.
It also falls on the state in Capitalism.
You can shift resources around as necessary. With replacement, you can still maintain a system.
Generational shifts happen slowly and in full view. You can act accordingly, this is a process that lasts decades.
Only partially.
COVID happened in months, spread like wildfire and put a huge strain on healthcare systems worldwide. No amount of money thrown at the system would have increased capacity.
Sure, but it can be reacted to and dealt with easier in Socialism than Capitalism.